How Photographers Can Get Their Blog Posts & Images to Rank

As photographers we quickly learned one of the most beneficial tools in marketing our business is our blogs. We can display our work, chat about what we do, and show potential clients what we have to offer. One of the most common mistakes I see photographers make is their blogging. Here are some quick tips to help you blog better, more efficiently and blog better for SEO.

Main Blog Site Meta Data: One of the most important and easiest SEO factors that are quite often overlooked when people make their own blogs is the blog Meta data. This Meta data is what is the very first impression a potential client will see when searching for a photographer in Google or any search engine. This is your opportunity to make your company stand out, so make your Meta data good. There are 3 aspects to Meta data that should never be overlooked.

Title - the website title for the page is what appears in search results as well as at the top of the browser. An example would be "Buffalo Family Photographer | Portrait Pretty Photography"

Description - the description is what shows up in search results, so you will want to input data that will not only draw a person in to click on your site, but you will also want to tell a brief story explaining what the page is about. An example would be, "Portrait Pretty Photography is a Buffalo Family Photographer based in Western New York offering custom family portraits throughout locations in WNY or our studio."

Keywords - this should be included in the relevant web page, title, as well as the description. A good example would be, "Buffalo Family Photographer"

**** Duplicate Meta data can hurt your site. A quick way to check if your blog is an offender of duplicate meta descriptions you check it in your Google Webmaster Tools, from there click on the search appearance, then on "HTML IMPROVEMENTS & META DESCRIPTIONS"

Keyword Rich Topics - have the relevant keyword in the first 90 characters of the post, and also included in the last paragraph of the post.

Content - Plan for a minimum of 300 words per post. Write about something your reader will want to know and do not write just for the sake of ranking for the search engine. That tactic will get short-term results but they will not last.

Keywords over use - Do not keyword stuff a post. Add keywords and variations, only if it makes sense.

Plan on 1 page per key word - Donít use the same key word for each page. This goes back to, the main point I mentioned above regarding duplicate Meta data. This applies to duplicate content as well. It will only hurt your website and blog. Search engines want fresh unique content.

Blog more than just client sessions. I often write How Toís, Where To Find, etc.

Blog Post Images - When you are posting images to your blog, always keep in mind the search engine does not know what is in the image, as they cannot see it. So a good thing to do is tell the search engine what is in it. An easy way to do that is to fill in the information prior adding the image to your post. The information I am referring to is the Title, Alt Text and Description. Now when someone does an image search, your images will appear.

Image Title - This is the name of the image. You want to steer Google in the right direction, correct? So having a file name M24FISAJ.jpg does not tell the search engine anything, while beachfamilyportraits.jpg tells Google what the image is.

ALT Image Information - A good example would be "Family Portrait in Water at XYZ Beach" instead of "Beach Portrait" if it is a long description make sure to include it in the text of the blog post. ALT text should be no more than 125 characters and do not keyword stuff.

Image Captions - Helps the search engine further understand what the image is about. Make sure to use your post key words and describe.

SEO has changed so drastically in the last 10 years. Quality content is so important when it comes to SEO. Create good fresh content consistently and you will get to the top of the search engines in no time.

Jennifer Gorski Loganathan is the lead photographer at Portrait Pretty Photography specializing in newborn photography in Buffalo NY.